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Slightly late news from the front. Friday Acclaim held a Mortal Kombat vs DC Comics panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2008. Velcor and I were there covering the event, we were promised a giant poster in the press release. We were giddy as a couple of schoolgirls.

Highlights of the panel:

• MK wanted to do a crossover with Tekken and Street Fighter.
• This game is a reboot of the MK franchise, back to a clean slate.
• Heavy focus on the story, you get to pick sides in character-specific chapters.
• New gameplay mechanics: Free Fall Combat, Klose Fighting mode, clothes damage, improved scenario transitions.
• Jax, Kitana, Green Lantern and The Joker announced into the rooster.
• Heavy hinting at Aquaman being there.
• Mortal Kombat compilation announced for release on September.
• Comic will be released to tie-in with the game.
• Might be released for the Wii.

Read on for our complete account of the event!

The panel was hosted by Ed Boon, creator of the Mortal Kombat series and Jimmy Palmiotti, DC Comics icon. The event started with the crowd cheering over the MK vs DC trailer. Ed Boon reminded the audience that this is the 8th game in the Mortal Kombat series, and a decade since they first considered the idea of doing a crossover with another franchise. At the time they were considering Tekken and Street Fighter as options (oh the games that never were).

This game is seen as a reboot of the Mortal Kombat franchise, breaking pretty much with a lot of things done in past games and bringing it back to basics, well, as basic as Mortal Kombat can get. This means no weapons, combos eliminated as such, no finishing moves besides brutalities and fatalities, no create a fighter mode, etc. A lot of fans were disappointed at this, however, Ed Boon defended this choice as something the franchise needs.

On to specifics of MK vs DC. The game has a very heavy focus on its story mode, Jimmy Palmiotti says that they’ve gone to great lengths to create a story that faithfully brings these two universes together. From the hints they drop it appears the Mortal Kombat universe invades the DC universe in some way and during the story mode you will have to pick sides between the two sides. The story will be divided by chapters featuring a single character all leading all to the climax of the story.

Game mechanics also have seen some improvements. The first one discussed is Free Fall Combat which we’ve already seen in the trailer. When one character pushes another off a stage they will both enter into a falling sequence where both characters can fight and depending on this may change the outcome of the fall. The character on top can also choose to execute a special move to finish the fall, dealing less damage but avoiding the risk of losing the fall. The game also features clothe damage and we can see its very detailed, costumes getting torn as damage is dealt. Its no Soul Calibur but fans still cheer when Catwoman’s costume starts getting torn.

Another improvement of the game mechanics is Klose Fighting combat mode, its basically an expansion on grab moves. When you grab a character you enter into Klose Fighting mode, in this mode you can deal more damage per hit to your opponent and also execute special moves, think of it like a timed combo. Scenario transitions have also been expanded and are now a sort of mini game where during the transition you can cause damage to your opponent depending on your actions. The example given is Superman pushing his opponent through several walls of a building, depending on the players actions they can deal more damage with each wall broken.

Now for the big announcements, first of all 4 new characters will be revealed into the rooster, they are Jax, Kitana, Green Lantern and The Joker. The audience goes mad at the last two. There is also heavy hinting that Aquaman will be in the game as well. Super villains will be revealed later as big boss characters, both Ed and Jimmy seem really excited about this part and at one point Jimmy near spilled who the end boss was. Sadly he’d like to keep his job.

A mortal compilation will be released for the PS2 in September, it will include Deception, Armageddon and Shaolin Monks. There will also be an exclusive comic book released as a tie-in with the game. The team is still looking into downloadable content and alternate costumes. The online component of the game seeks to have that feeling of challenging someone at the arcade, the leaderboards will be designed towards that.

One fan asks if the game might see the light of day on the Wii, Ed Boon says that while they are not currently producing it for the Wii they’d like to look into it after the game is released.

The panel ends, no posters were handed out, we leave empty handed. :(